SAMANTHA SMITH FOUNDATION PLANNED

Samantha Smith's mother said in an interview released Sunday she is creating a foundation in memory of her daughter, who went on a peace mission to the Soviet Union at the invitation of Soviet leader Yuri Andropov.

In her first in-depth interview since her husband and 13-year-old daughter were killed in a plane crash last month, Jane Smith said in the inaugural edition of Picture Week that the foundation would "foster international understanding in the spirit of Samantha."

Smith told the magazine she had not yet decided how to spend contributions to the Samantha Smith Foundation. Picture Week is a new magazine published by Time, Inc., being tested in 13 cities across the nation.

Among the ideas to be considered, she said, are underwriting an international children's exchange, providing scholarships for foreign affairs students and creating an endowment for foreign college professors.

"The real important thing is to make Samantha's life valuable by moving on to this new step," Smith said, adding she hopes to work full time at the foundation.

"And most of all, it's a way for me to keep in touch with both of them."

Samantha, who was an only child, her father Arthur, and six others died Aug. 25 in the crash of a commuter plane near Auburn, Maine, during a rainstorm.